NFL owners set to meet at 'Hotel California' to decide relocation

Rams fans gather for a rally at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016. The NFL's owners are expected to decide this week whether any combination of the Rams, Chargers and Raiders will be allowed to move to Los Angeles. (Richard Vogel/AP Photo)

Topics

Okay, it’s actually an upscale Westin high-rise in the west end of this sprawling South Texas city. But it’s here that the NFL’s 32 owners on Tuesday and Wednesday meet for the purpose of deciding, at last, Los Angeles-relocation allocation.

Or if you will, with arpeggios ringing from 12-string acoustic guitars, who can check in and who can never leave.

For the past year, the NFL has had one devil of a time trying to figure out which team, or teams, ought to relocate to the City of Angels. Since the Rams and Raiders bolted for then-greener pastures after the 1994 season -- the Rams to St. Louis, the Raiders back to Oakland -- Los Angeles has been without an NFL team.

By Wednesday night we should finally find out if Tinseltown gets one team back or two.

Three clubs have requested to relocate there: the irony-blind Rams and Raiders, plus the San Diego Chargers.

Stan Kroenke seeks to move his Rams to Inglewood, just inland from LA International Airport, in a snazzy, privately financed, roofed new stadium whose final cost could shoot far past $2 billion.

Separately, and subsequently, Chargers owner Dean Spanos and Raiders owner Mark Davis have teamed with the city of Carson (21 km south of Inglewood, and farther inland) to build a new, slightly less ostentatious stadium there.

That plan professes to be shovel-ready -- a near miracle in LA, where environmental red tape regularly suffocates big-idea projects, including previous NFL-stadium proposals.

Kroenke’s stadium purports to be nearly shovel-ready.

Reports, however, say neither plan has the 24 ownership votes required for NFL approval. In part, that’s why this process has been so uncertain, so dicey, so fragile, so political, so drawn out.

By NFL by-laws, all it takes is nine dissenting owners (that is, more than 25%) to scupper any relocation proposal, or indeed any ownership vote.

“A no vote gets nothing done,” Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said in the autumn. “We’ve done nothing for 20 years. We’ve got an opportunity here. We’ve got great, great potential people who want to expand the NFL into a great market. I don’t want to miss that train.”

Personalities and allegiances among owners already have played an enormous role, but not the sole role; LA is just too important for league business (and thus everybody’s income) for that.

According to Forbes last year, the reclusive Kroenke is the NFL’s third richest NFL owner, with a net worth of $6.3 billion. He is married to a Walton family heiress, of Walmart empire fame. Reports and insiders claim Kroenke is seen by fellow owners as, at best, enigmatic and misunderstood -- at worst, unliked and unpopular.

Davis is son of the late, long-time Raiders owner Al Davis, sportdom’s patron saint of renegade franchise ownership. He famously, and successfully, sued the NFL in 1982 for the right to relocate his Raiders to Los Angeles. Many embittered NFL owners never forgave him. How much residue yet sticks to his son?

In contrast, Spanos is well liked by owners. They know he patiently tried for more than a decade to convince local politicians to help him build a new stadium, and spent millions in the process.

It is for this reason that many insiders believe the Chargers, at least on their own merits, are a virtual lock to gain relocation approval.

But how? And with who? And whereto?

Behind closed doors owners will discuss, arm-bend and who-knows-what-else to try end this year-long song, dance and pony-show.

It’s probable that a hard-fought compromise of some sort -- involving whichever approved team, or teams, and at whichever proposed stadium -- is the ultimate end-game here. No combination is off the table, apparently.

Jones, the Cowboys owner, on Friday officially submitted a compromise seen since early last year as the one that (a) makes the most sense, and (b) seems likeliest to gain league approval: the Rams and Chargers pairing up at Kroenke’s Inglewood location, and the snubbed Raiders consoled with a windfall chunk of those two teams’ respective $550-million relocation fees, to help finance a new stadium in the Bay Area.

Kevin Acee of the San Diego Times-Union on Monday quoted an unnamed league executive as saying “Jerry’s plan is the only one with a chance to get 24 votes -- if it gets on the ballot.”

The LA committee on Monday was considering formally submitting Jones’ as a third proposal, Acee reported.

But other reports have suggested Spanos does not like Kroenke. And Spanos even publicly has dismissed any suggestion of dumping the Raiders for anything, or anyone.

The hunch here is that if a vote is called this week, expect it to be a rubber stamp.

It’s inconceivable that commissioner Roger Goodell and the LA committee’s power owners would dare put any proposal up for vote without being confident of its passage. Or, in the event of multiple-proposal votes, confident of defeat of all but the preferred proposal they know will pass.

If there’s nothing but defeated votes, it would be a huge embarrassment. With the Ray Rice, Deflate-gate and concussion shiners still purply-black in colour, the last thing the NFL needs is another black eye.

The trick, then, is hammering out a compromise palatable to 75% of owners.

“Everybody’s hope is that we have a vote ... and end this thing,” New York Giants co-owner and LA committee member John Mara said last week.

That way we’ll know who’s running out the door, and who must find the passage back to the place they were before.

ST. LOUIS RAMS

Principal owner: Stan Kroenke, real-estate billionaire.

Other sports holdings: Arsenal FC of the English Premier League. Kroenke family owns four pro sports teams in Denver, including NHL’s Colorado Avalanche and NBA’s Nuggets.

LA relocation plan: Announced last January, specifically to move to LA suburb of Inglewood.

New stadium plan: Owns massive tract of land in Inglewood, the former Hollywood Park horse-race track. Partnered with Stockbridge Capital Group for nearly shovel-ready, futuristic, partially covered 70,000-seat stadium. Original cost pegged at $1.86 billion, but the Orange County Register reported Sunday the cost could rise as high as $2.66 billion.

New stadium hurdles: The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) two months ago formally lodged a concern that the proposed stadium, located just three miles from LA International Airport, might interfere with radar and thus potentially imperil landing jets. Some have said this could delay ground-breaking for years.

Partnership plans: None originally. But Kroenke reportedly now willing to be equal partners with a second team.

Local efforts to keep team: State of Missouri and local politicians propose a new $1.1-billion riverfront stadium, with some $400 million of public money committed. Not enough, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell informed them on the weekend.

Ownership allies: Kroenke, a notoriously private man, is no glad-hander. Some interpret that as arrogance and aloofness. That could prove his undoing here. For what it’s worth, Kroenke is a member of only two of 26 NFL owner committees: broadcasting and NFL Network.

If denied: In short term, revolving one-year lease of Edward Jones Dome would continue. Kroenke reportedly covets the next available English-speaking megalopolis. “Sources have mentioned Kroenke might simply go back to the Edward Jones Dome on one-year leases, and turn attention to Toronto or London,” Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News wrote in October. “And if the Chargers and Raiders move to Los Angeles, the Bay Area and San Diego could be markets he looks (at).”

SAN DIEGO CHARGERS

Principal owner: Self-made billionaire Alex Spanos, 92, who bought controlling interest in the club in 1984. But son Dean, the president and CEO, runs the team.

Other sports holdings: None.

LA relocation plan: Last February teamed with the Raiders and the city of Carson, Calif., to propose a new stadium in Carson. Two shrewd appointments have proved master strokes inside NFL circles. First, the Chargers/Raiders initiative appointed as project point person former well-respected, long-time San Francisco 49ers executive Carmen Policy. Then last fall, at the reported behest of Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson (and member of the NFL’s Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities), Disney chairman and CEO Robert Iger was added to oversee the stadium’s design and construction.

New-stadium plan: $1.75-billion, open-air, approximately 65,000 seats, natural grass field. With a 120-foot tower that would prominently display representative branding, depending on which team is playing host to a game at the time. Located on a 157-acre former landfill site.

Local efforts to keep team: Nothing substantive. According to the Orange County Register and other West Coast press, the Spanos family finally stopped negotiating with city and county officials on plans for a new $1.1-billion stadium in nearby Mission Valley -- in part because of environmental red tape, mostly because of a lack of public financial help, due to vocal opposition from some politicians and hotel owners.

Ownership allies: Many. The Spanos family is held in high regard within NFL membership. The family’s persistence and patience in trying since at least 2002 to strike a new stadium deal in the San Diego area has not gone unnoticed by other owners.

If denied: In short term, would strike new lease deal at Qualcomm Stadium. It’s possible the Spanos family could look to relocate to a newly vacated market (St. Louis or Oakland), but might choose to see what best could be done in San Diego.

OAKLAND RAIDERS

Principal owner: Mark Davis, son of the late Al Davis.

Other sports holdings: None.

LA relocation plan: Last February teamed with the Chargers and the city of Carson, Calif., to propose a new stadium in Carson. Two shrewd appointments have proved master strokes inside NFL circles. First, the Chargers/Raiders initiative appointed as project point person former well-respected, long-time San Francisco 49ers executive Carmen Policy. Then last fall, at the reported behest of Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson (and member of the NFL’s Committee on Los Angeles Opportunities), Disney chairman and CEO Robert Iger was added to oversee the stadium’s design and construction.

New-stadium plan: $1.75-billion, open-air, approximately 65,000 seats, natural grass field. With a 120-foot tower that would prominently display representative branding, depending on which team is playing host to a game at the time. Located on a 157-acre former landfill site.

Local efforts to keep team: Team and NFL willing to contribute $500 million toward a new stadium. Local politicians have flatly rejected providing the rest.

Ownership allies: Perhaps has more than Kroenke, but not nearly as many as Spanos. Some think the NFL has no desire to allow the Raiders to ever return to LA, where the club was far too closely associated with local gang culture for the NFL’s liking. Others think if the NFL were to allow the Raiders to move to LA, some owners would want anyone other than Davis to reap the benefits.

If denied: In short term, would continue year-to-year lease of O.co Coliseum. If Davis gets enough special funding from the NFL -- from the $550-million per-team LA relocation fees of successful applicants -- and gets more public assistance, he could choose to stay in the Bay Area and build a new stadium. If he eyes a move, however, he already reached out to an interested San Antonio market two years ago, where Davis owns land large enough to build a new stadium. That talk would heat up fast.

NFL owners set to meet at 'Hotel California' to decide relocation

Okay, it’s actually an upscale Westin high-rise in the west end of this sprawling South Texas city. But it’s here that the NFL’s 32 owners on Tuesday and Wednesday meet for the purpose of deciding, at last, Los Angeles-relocation allocation.

Or if you will, with arpeggios ringing from 12-string acoustic guitars, who can check in and who can never leave.

For the past year, the NFL has had one devil of a time trying to figure out which team, or teams, ought to relocate to the City of Angels. Since the Rams and Raiders bolted for then-greener pastures after the 1994 season -- the Rams to St. Louis, the Raiders back to Oakland -- Los Angeles has been without an NFL team.

By Wednesday night we should finally find out if Tinseltown gets one team back or two.

Three clubs have requested to relocate there: the irony-blind Rams and Raiders, plus the San Diego Chargers.